Optillion opens North America Office

Optillion opens North America Office The Swedish high technology company Optillion, which operates in the optic component and subsystem market, has hired Geoffrey Brown as Vice President of Business Development & Sales. Mr. Brown will open the Optillion office in North America, to be based in the San Francisco Bay area. In May, Tornado Insider named Optillion as one of Europe's top 25 emerging private technology companies. The geographic expansion of Optillion's presence will enable the company to build upon their relationships with other leading optical companies, enabling the development of products that will increase the capacity of fiber networks. Employment in the North American office will grow with the addition of application engineering, marketing, sales, and customer service personnel over the next few months. "We are very pleased to present Geoffrey Brown as the head of our American office. Geoffrey is a strong leader with many years of international experience needed to manage the establishment of Optillion in the USA. The North American market is home to many of our potential customers and partners," says Patrik Evaldsson, CEO of Optillion. Optillion was founded in December 1999, and employs world-leading expertise in high-speed optics, high-speed electronics, automated manufacturing, and assembly - the four fields vital to successful development and production of optical transceivers. The transmission capacity of Optillion's first transceivers will be 10Gbit/s Ethernet. In May Optillion showed its transceiver module at the Networld + Interop trade show, compliant with the Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) for 10Gbit/s Ethernet transceivers that the company helped establish as a member of the XENPAK Group. Last quarter Optillion announced that the company would build its own factory in Kungens Kurva, south of Stockholm, establishing its ability to better meet the performance, time-to- development, and cost objectives of its customers. "We have shown that Optillion's design expertise, in conjunction with the establishment of the MSA, will allow us to meet the technical needs and challenges of our customers. Our factory, coming on-line, and the establishment of regional support, will allow us to meet the rest of our customer's business needs as well," says Patrik Evaldsson, CEO of Optillion. Mr. Brown comes to Optillion from Tyco Electronics where he was the Director of Sales for Europe and the Americas for their Protection Components business, which comprised technology-driven passive and active products. He managed an international sales team that excelled in the development of new applications and new product development in conjunction with key OEM customers. He joined Tyco with the acquisition of Raychem in 1999, where he managed the North American sales organization for Raychem's Circuit Protection Business. For additional information, please contact: Patrik Evaldsson, CEO, tel. +46 8-477 41 61, mobile: +46 701-81 52 11 Geoffrey Brown, Vice President of Business Development & Sales, tel. +1 (415) 706 95 89 Heléne Wolpher, Information Manager, tel. +46 8-477 41 60, mobile: +46 701-81 52 23 ABOUT OPTILLION Optillion is a high-tech Swedish company that operates in the optic component and subsystem market. The business concept of Optillion is to develop, manufacture and sell transceivers that will increase the capacity of fiber optic networks. The transmission capacity of Optillion's first transceivers will be 10 Gbit/s Ethernet. Optillion was founded in December 1999 by Christer Svensson, Professor of electronic components at the University of Linköping, Lars Thylén, Professor of photonics at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (KTH) and Jan G. Nilsson, a successful entrepreneur. In a very short time, these three have put together a very strong team of experts within all the four fields that are vital for success. Today, Optillion employs experts in high-speed electronics, high-speed optics, automated manufacturing and encasing. The company currently employs 94 people. The principal owners of Optillion are ITACT, Crescendo Ventures, Cisco Systems and Investor Growth Capital. In order to be able to manufacture large volumes of high-performance transceivers for 10 Gbit/s Ethernet at low cost, Optillion has chosen to build its own factory. Optillion will use the factory to manufacture optochips and to encase and assemble the transceivers. When the factory is finished, it will constitute the hub of Optillion's business operations. The new factory is being built in Kungens Kurva, south of Stockholm. www.optillion.com ------------------------------------------------------------ This information was brought to you by Waymaker http://www.waymaker.net The following files are available for download: http://www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2001/08/13/20010813BIT00570/bit0001.doc http://www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2001/08/13/20010813BIT00570/bit0003.pdf